Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Quantifying Spatial Heterogeneity Of Wild Blueberries And Crop Water Stress Monitoring Using Remote Sensing Technologies, Kallol Barai

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The wild blueberry is one of the major crops of Maine, with significant economic value and potential health benefits. Due to global climate change, drought impacts have been increasing significantly in recent years in the northeast region of the USA, causing significant economic losses in the agricultural sectors. It has been predicted to increase further in the future. Changing patterns of the elevated atmospheric temperatures, increased rainfall variabilities, and more frequent drought events have made the wild blueberry industry of Maine vulnerable, suggesting the adoption of novel approaches to mitigate the negative impacts of global climate changes. Also, wild blueberry …

Social Capital, Indigenous Storytelling, And Fish Diversity: Learning Together Through Community-University Partnerships In Downeast Maine, Michelle De Leon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Not only can community-university partnerships be vehicles for mobilizing community resources and affecting change, they also have high potential to produce useful, nuanced research and enable renewed visions of trust. I explore partnerships rooted in trust in the context of a community-university partnership between the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Sipayik and the University of Maine and its work through the Passamaquoddy-led StoryMaps Team. To accomplish this, I take a transdisciplinary approach to incorporate diverse perspectives on understanding critical and ethical approaches to engagement with Indigenous communities. The central focus among all three chapters is the need for Indigenous communities and institutions …

An Experimental Investigation Into The Effects Of Trait And State Self-Criticism On The Benefits And Barriers To Non-Suicidal Self-Injury, Melissa Jankowski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI; e.g., harming oneself without the intent to die) is a leading health concern, and research indicates rates of NSSI are increasing. Despite the clear negative implications of NSSI, mechanisms that reinforce the continual engagement in these behaviors remain unclear. The Benefits and Barriers Model (Hooley & Franklin, 2017) proposes there are barriers that prevent most individuals from engaging in these deleterious behaviors; however, once these barriers are eroded, one becomes more likely to engage in NSSI. One such barrier is a positive association with the self. Self-criticism is generally understood as a trait lowering desire to avoid …

Quantifying The Carbon Sequestration And Economic Potential Of Natural Climate Solutions From Maine's Working Forests, Logan Woodyard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to develop a dynamic, regionally integrated forest sector model framework to identify cost-effective forest management and carbon sequestration practices across Maine’s 17,000,000 acres from 2019 to 2119. We take a three-pronged approach, each with its own set of inputs, parameters, accuracies, and skill level requirements. To achieve this we first review a group of biophysical, spatial, and silvicultural studies in the northeast to determine changes and costs of forest carbon sequestration across different treatments and harvesting practices. This allows us to estimate sequestration above baseline, the cost of mitigation, and determine the strength of …

Intersections Of Environmentalism, Chemistry, And Racism: An Experimental Study Of Halobenzene Hydrogenolysis And Critical Communication Studies Of Equitable Learning Practices Rooted In Black Feminism, Lauren O. Babb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Increasing concentrations of fluorinated aromatic compounds in surface water, groundwater, and soil pose threats to the environment. Fundamental studies that elucidate mechanisms of dehalogenation for C-X compounds (where X represents a halide) are required to develop effective remediation strategies. For halogenated benzenes, previously published research has suggested that the strength of the C-X bond is not rate-determining in the overall rate of dehalogenation. Instead, the rate-determining step has been hypothesized to be adsorption of the C-X compound onto the surface of a catalyst. Building on this hypothesis, in this work, we examine the reaction kinetics of fluorobenzene conversion to benzene, …

Landings, Vol. 30, No. 8, Maine Lobstermen’S Community Alliance, Melissa Waterman, Patrice Mccarron, Sam Belknap

Landings: News & Views from Maine's Lobstering Community

Landings content emphasizes science, history, resource sustainability, economic development, and human interest stories related to Maine's lobster industry. The newsletter emphasizes lobstering as a traditional, majority-European American lifeway with an economic and social heritage unique to the coast of Maine. The publication focuses how ongoing research to engage in sustainable, non-harmful, and non-wasteful commercial fishing practices benefit both the fishery and Maine's coastal legacy.

For more information, please visit the Maine Lobstermen’s Community Alliance (MLCA) website.

Assessment Of Historical Climate Variability In Maine With Implications For Future Agricultural Productivity And Adaptation, Carly Frank

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Climate change is a wicked problem with global impacts, one of which being the sustainability of the existing global food system. As temperatures and variability in precipitation are projected to increase, the challenges to agriculture are expected to intensify. This thesis examines the Maine historical climate record over the growing season, in combination with future projections, to assess how conditions have changed and will change with agricultural implications. In this analysis, relevant climatic variables are analyzed, and agriculture-significant measures are derived for Maine’s three climate divisions using four decades of daily and monthly gridded datasets. In addition, this thesis explores …

Co-Rumination, Romantic Relationships, And Depressive Symptom Development In Adolescence, Jessica L. Shankman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present research aimed to better understand the associations among romantic involvement, co-rumination with friends, and depressive symptom development in a sample of 338 adolescents (ages 14-19 years). Using a multi-method, longitudinal study design, the present study examined whether co-rumination (self-reported and observed) mediated the relationship between romantic involvement and depressive symptoms over time. Next, analyses separately tested whether this process was further moderated by positive friendship quality, whether youth discuss romantic experiences during problem talk with friends, and/or gender. Analyses also tested whether romantic relationship quality among romantically involved youth influenced depressive symptoms over time via co-rumination.

Results supported …

The Effects Of A Universal Income Transfer On Food Insecurity Within Households, Prianka Maria Sarker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Food insecurity is a persistent public health problem, and it adversely affects multiple dimensions of health and well-being across various stages of life. Socio-economic characteristics is one of the key predictors of food insecurity and there exists a strong association between income and food insecurity. Since food insecurity is closely linked to deprivation of financial resources, research has been continued to examine the potential of government income support policies in mitigating food insecurity. Several studies have already demonstrated that income interventions alleviate household-level food insecurity. However, little is known about how these public policies affect adults and children, within the …

The Role Of Confrontation Effectiveness For Women's Psychological Wellbeing After A Sexist Event, Shelby Helwig

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation includes three experimental studies investigating how confronting sexism impacts college-aged women. In Studies 1 and 2, we investigated how confronting effectively versus ineffectively influenced women’s imagined (Study 1) and actual (Study 2) psychological wellbeing. In Study 3, we investigated how imagining the costs and benefits of confronting sexual harassment impacted women’s confrontational behavior and negative affect. All three studies supported the conclusion that an effective confrontation is a goal for most confronters (Study 3) and whether or not a confrontation is effective influences women’s imagined (Study 1) and actual (Study 2) psychological wellbeing. Beyond this, all three studies …

Environmental Justice Coalition Building In Virginia: The Fight Against The Acp, William White

Honors College

This qualitative study utilized snowball sampling and semi-structured interviews in order to understand environmental coalition building in Virginia during 2014-2020, a critical time during which activists came together to resist the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). Grass-roots activism has proven to be one of the most important elements in efforts to resist fossil fuel infrastructure such as the ACP. Understanding how activists with different perspectives can come together in common cause to form a successful environmental justice coalition a will help future movements advance policies to limit the effects of climate change and promote the cause of environmental justice.

Sustainability As Justice Engaging With North American Alternative Seafood Networks Through Participatory Action Research, Paloma Henriques

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Transformations in the ways we relate to the ocean are long overdue given the myriad of anthropogenic problems that exist – from overfishing to plastic pollution and acidification to ‘slavery-at-sea ’ and loss of access and fishing rights. Yet alongside the hegemonic modes of ocean exploitation exist diverse alternative economies, including those associated with alternative seafood networks, that aim to create different and more-than-economic relationships with marine systems. To situate my research within the broader literature, I interpret the widely used Brundtland Report definition of sustainability, “meet[ing] the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to …

From Self-Help To Self-Harm: Rhetoric In The Self-Help Industry, Grace S. Royle

Non-Thesis Student Work

Over the past several years, the self-help industry has become increasingly more successful and sought out; especially in the United States, whose modern society celebrates individualism and self-improvement. However, within this new and unregulated field lie several unknowns and invisible dangers. Multiple instances involving popular and beloved gurus have ended in tragedy, twisting cases of self-help into self-harm. This paper chases after just how this is possible and discovers that weaponized communication is largely to blame.

From Self-Help to Self-Harm: Rhetoric in the Self-Help Industry discusses the cases of James Arthur Ray, Keith Raniere, and Isaac Hershkopf to uncover how …

Landings, Vol. 30, No. 7, Maine Lobstermen’S Community Alliance, Melissa Waterman, Patrice Mccarron, Patrick Keliher

Landings: News & Views from Maine's Lobstering Community

Landings content emphasizes science, history, resource sustainability, economic development, and human interest stories related to Maine's lobster industry. The newsletter emphasizes lobstering as a traditional, majority-European American lifeway with an economic and social heritage unique to the coast of Maine. The publication focuses how ongoing research to engage in sustainable, non-harmful, and non-wasteful commercial fishing practices benefit both the fishery and Maine's coastal legacy.

For more information, please visit the Maine Lobstermen’s Community Alliance (MLCA) website.

I Am Kind, I Am Smart, I Am Important: The Effects Of Self- Affirmation On Women’S Confrontational Responses To Sexism, Kathryn L. Roderick

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present research sought to examine the effects of self-affirmation on women’s confrontation approaches following exposure to sexism. However, before examining the effects of self-affirmation, we needed a way to measure confrontation approaches. In Study 1, participants read either prototypical HATE or CARE confrontations and assessed the response. Researchers then conducted an exploratory factor analysis to create a novel scale that can assess approaches to confrontation. Study 1 also established the reliability of the HATE and CARE subscales (α = .956 and α = .929, respectively). Study 2 sought to establish the construct validity of the new measure. Study 2 …

Landings, Vol. 30, No. 6, Maine Lobstermen’S Community Alliance, Melissa Waterman, Patrice Mccarron, Craig Stewart

Landings: News & Views from Maine's Lobstering Community

Landings content emphasizes science, history, resource sustainability, economic development, and human interest stories related to Maine's lobster industry. The newsletter emphasizes lobstering as a traditional, majority-European American lifeway with an economic and social heritage unique to the coast of Maine. The publication focuses how ongoing research to engage in sustainable, non-harmful, and non-wasteful commercial fishing practices benefit both the fishery and Maine's coastal legacy.

For more information, please visit the Maine Lobstermen’s Community Alliance (MLCA) website.

The Viking, June 2022, Town Of Veazie

Maine Town Documents

The Viking is the newsletter of the Town of Veazie, Maine and the Veazie Community School.

Research Skills Combining Microbes And Social Equity (Avs 590-0980), Sue Ishaq, School Of Food And Agriculture

General University of Maine Publications

To understand a microbiome, you must learn about the bustling community of microorganisms and the complex ecosystems they live in, because one cannot exist without the other. So, too, does microbiome research rely on understanding the lives and ecology of humans, because there is no aspect of human life which does not involve microbes in some way. To become better microbiome researchers, we must understand social and environmental contexts which affect humans and, in many cases, prevent them from making choices which result in beneficial microbial exposures. This symposium will focus on developing research skills to create transformative research, including …

Giving Form To Flow: Modeling The Paleohydrological Context For Human Settlement And Water Use In The North-Central Coast Of Peru, Elizabeth Leclerc

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Within coastal Andean archaeology there is a growing emphasis on the roles of hydrology and hydrological knowledge in Andean strategies for water management, settlement, and land use. Hydrological methods can not only help reconstruct past water environments but also illuminate the influence of changing climates and conditions in the Andean highlands on coastal water flows. Through a case study of the Supe River basin in north-central coastal Peru, focusing on the period from 5000 to 3000 calibrated radiocarbon years before present (cal. BP), I review several hydrological methods useful for archaeological study. I then combine these to develop a paleohydrological …

Outdoor Pursuits And Outdoor Learning At Rural Maine Schools: A Positive Outlier Approach, Lauren E. Jacobs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explored the barriers and facilitators to outdoor learning and outdoor pursuits (OPs) in some of the most rural isolated K-12 schools in Maine. The purpose was to understand why some of these schools incorporate a lot of OPs and outdoor learning into their curriculum while other schools do not. Outdoor pursuits and outdoor learning in school settings are worthy of study because they provide students with opportunities to increase physical activity, benefit from time in nature, and make important connections to local culture (Lim et al., 2017; Schafft, 2016; Trembley et al., 2015).

This study employed a comparative …

Evaluation Of Fish Assemblage Composition And The Expansion Of An Invasive Species Following Dam Removal And Upgraded Fish Passage In The Penobscot River, Maine, Kory A. Whittum

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Penobscot River Restoration Project was a large river rehabilitation project, culminating in the removal of the two lowermost dams (Veazie and Great Works) and improvements to fish passage on several remaining dams. Fish assemblages were surveyed for 3 years prior to rehabilitation, 3 years after, and now 8 years post-rehabilitation. Approximately 475 km of shoreline was sampled via boat electrofishing, yielding 133,394 individual fish of 41 species. The greatest shifts in assemblage structure occurred immediately after dam removal in formerly impounded sections, with increased prevalence of riverine and migratory species. Extended sampling documented several additional changes occurring within lower …

Miss Usa Meets Feminism: A Qualitative Study Exploring Contestants' Thoughts On Feminism, Julia Van Steenberghe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore pageant contestants’ thoughts on feminism. A total of 12 of the 51 state titleholders who had competed in the 2020 Miss USA Competition were interviewed. They were recruited through letters sent to individual State Pageant Directors of Miss USA. The objective of the study was to gain an understanding of how women who compete in beauty pageants view their participation in light of feminism. The focus of the interviews centered on their motivations for participating, pageantry support for feminist ideals, their own self-identification as a feminist, and any criticism they may …

Teacher Growth In Knowledge Of Conservation Of Energy And In Self-Efficacy, Paul H. Wilson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines a conversation between a group of three in-service teachers during a professional development workshop. During the workshop, the teachers collaborated to answer a set of survey questions pertaining to energy concepts in physical science. The teachers began the survey expressing low self-efficacy in their knowledge of energy. Through this study, we were able to observe teachers as they learned new concepts. This study used a narrative analysis of their conversation. The analysis centers on changes in the teachers’ common content knowledge of conservation of energy and their expressed self-efficacy regarding that knowledge. Their knowledge was evaluated from …

Ancient Cities: Teaching And Learning In The Digital Age, Stefan Feuser, Francis Brouns, Michael Blömer, Alain Duplouy, Simon Malmberg, Stephanie Merten, Christina Videbech, Alessia Zambon, Mantha Zarmakoupi

Journal of Archaeology and Education

In this paper we present an overview of the Ancient Cities project’s outcomes and experiences with producing and testing digital educational material in the field of archaeology. In the first part, the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Discovering Greek & Roman Cities is introduced with respect to its target audiences and learning objectives, the ways in which it was disseminated to the target audiences, and how its structure and learning material were developed. Based on several questionnaires answered by the participants and user data from the MOOC platform itself, we were able to collect comprehensive information on the demography of …

Take Action! Empowering Families Of Children With Disabilities As Leaders In Advocacy And Policy Development, Anita Tevanian

Poster Presentations

Families of children with disabilities are at the forefront of advocating for positive change in their communities. The policy development process can be intimidating and at times seem like a foreign language. Through development of leadership skills and networking, families can translate their lived experience into actionable steps toward a goal of policy change for the benefits of the wider community. The framework presented here reflects my personal story of advocacy work with the foundation of families as meaningful partners.

Landings, Vol. 30, No. 5, Maine Lobstermen’S Community Alliance, Melissa Waterman, Patrick Keliher, Patrice Mccarron

Landings: News & Views from Maine's Lobstering Community

Landings content emphasizes science, history, resource sustainability, economic development, and human interest stories related to Maine's lobster industry. The newsletter emphasizes lobstering as a traditional, majority-European American lifeway with an economic and social heritage unique to the coast of Maine. The publication focuses how ongoing research to engage in sustainable, non-harmful, and non-wasteful commercial fishing practices benefit both the fishery and Maine's coastal legacy.

For more information, please visit the Maine Lobstermen’s Community Alliance (MLCA) website.

Creación De Un Seminario Basado En La Equidad De Contenido Y Formato: Un Estudio De Caso Y Un Llamado A La Acción, Elizabeth L. Leclerc, Emily Blackwood, Kit M. Hamley, Frankie St. Amand, Heather A. Landázuri, Madeleine Landrum, Jordi A. Rivera Prince, Monica Barnes, Kristina Douglass, Maria Gutiérrez, Sarah Herr, Kirk A. Maasch, Daniel H. Sandweiss

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Creación de un seminario basado en la equidad de contenido y formato: Un estudio de caso y un llamado a la acción

Creating a Seminar Based on Content and Format Equity: A Case Study and Call to Action

Tabletop Roleplaying Games, And Depression, And Social Anxiety, Noelle B. Ott

Honors College

Tabletop roleplaying games are a form of in-person, multiplayer games structured around group interaction, set rules of gameplay, strategic group decision-making, and active character roleplaying. While such games have existed in some form for thousands of years, more recent and modern versions such as Dungeons & Dragons and Call of Cthulhu have increased attention not only to their use as a form of entertainment, but as a potential extension of play and drama therapies in a clinical setting (Henrich & Worthington, 2021). Research into therapeutic roleplaying, both with and without gameplay supervision, has shown a promising association with increased understanding …

The Organizational Evolution Of Small Food Buying Clubs, Taylor Lange

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Organizations are pervasive in modern society and the factors of their evolution are the subject of considerable scholarship. Most literature on organizational evolution focuses on the role of leaders and entrepreneurs, specifically their decision making interacts with market forces. However, the behavior and interactions of regular organization members, such as nonmanagerial employees or club members, is surprisingly overlooked. Specifically, examinations of social dilemmas between co-workers and the role of learning are often discounted in the current literature. This dissertation explores how the dynamics of cooperation and the learning of preferences as cultural traits become consequential in the evolution and longevity …

Incas And Arawaks: A Special Relationship Along The Andes-Amazonian Frontier, Darryl Wilkinson

Andean Past

In this article the author argues that the Incas and the Arawaks had a relationship that was more complementary than antagonistic.